Evening in late May

Evening sun on black poplar

It is a quarter to ten at night, and the sun is about to set. A tangerine glow surrounds it, more north than west now at the end of May, its intensity lessening further to the west, where it is present only as a faint pink blush edging the almost opaque blue of the advancing night sky. The moon, a few days past new, is gaining colour. At this hour the world – at least here, far away from war and other tumult – is at peace. 

I came in from the garden not so long ago, where I planted another row of lettuce and cucumbers after taking the laundry in from the clothesline. So soon this is taken for granted again, the days long, the breeze gentle, the humidity low. For the next few months the clothes-dryer is on standby, only used when it is raining, and I can revel in the incomparable scent of clothes dried in fresh air, burying my nose in a towel or a sheet when I unpin it.

There are other scents that weren’t there ten days ago: the mayday tree on the lawn, afflicted by a strange condition where some of its branches show ugly bulbous swellings and start to dry off, is still covered in greenish white blossoms, their intense sweet smell drifting over to the deck with the south wind today, almost overpowering when I walk right by. We sawed off the unsightly branches, hoping to delay the tree’s death which is likely unavoidable in the long run; maybe it will give it a few extra years. Maydays seem susceptible to this disease (or is it caused by insects?), which we didn’t know when we planted it in 1993, the second year we lived here. I will be sad to see it go: the trees are close to my heart, and I hate to lose even one of them. 

The weeping birch, one of my favourites, the mayday’s companion on the wide expanse of front lawn, has already fallen victim to the repeated ministrations of the yellow-bellied sapsucker combined with a few too-dry years. The pretty pattern the sapsucker leaves in the bark of birches, poplars, maydays and even the pine tree in front of the house is, in many cases, the mark of death for those trees. These birds bore holes in the bark where the sap seeps out in little pearly drops, a craved-for delicacy in itself and also an attraction to insects which, in turn, are then harvested by the sapsuckers. This, of course, is very stressful for a tree, especially if it has to succumb to it year after year, and with the added burden of drought many won’t survive. 

Saskatoon bush in bloom

So far, however, the mayday is still alive, and one of the first trees covered in blossoms in the spring. By now it has been joined by Saskatoon and chokecherry bushes, faithfully sticking to their May long weekend schedule for starting to open their buds. The first of the three apple trees is again covered in a cloud of huge white blossoms, and the other two are just starting out. After last year’s enormous apple harvest I expected the trees to take a break, but judging by their appearance at the moment they have decided to carry on. Many things can happen still, however, with frost the biggest threat at the moment. Night after night the temperatures drop to near freezing, even after days like today when the sun made it almost too warm to have breakfast on the deck, and it was pleasant enough for short sleeves the rest of the day. 

Apple tree

When I came in tonight it had cooled off considerably already, although I doubt that it will dip below zero. On this day in 1987 a spring storm brought twenty centimetres of snow, followed by temperatures as low as -10 Celsius. That year, lulled by several years of warm springs, I had transplanted my tomatoes early – and lost them all in one night. It is probably not without reason that the long weekend in May has traditionally been considered the right time to ‘put in the garden’ here. I don’t like to wait that long, but still hesitate to seed beans, cucumbers and squash much before now, and haven’t transplanted my tomatoes early since that experience.

This, however, is ‘only’ my garden: the crops face the same danger, with much more serious results. It has been a while since we lost a complete field because of it, but in the low lying peat areas close to the river it is a common problem. 

We finished seeding a week ago today, after two intense weeks of work, and several fields look nice and green already, especially after last week’s 45 mm of rain. The first two worries of the year are stilled: the crops went in on time, and the rain came right when we needed it. This is an excellent start, and we are thankful for it. The time of worrying, however, has only just begun, and many calamities can still happen before the grain is safely harvested and stored for the winter.

It is no different than any other year, and farmers learn to live with it and adjust to whatever happens. The weather is not obeying our will, after all, and, as the old German folk tale “The farmer as weather maker” illustrates, this is most certainly a good thing. Here, a farmer thought he could grow a much better crop if only he could be in charge of the weather for one growing season. He pleaded with God to leave it up to him, and God agreed. The farmer thought he had done a perfect job, making the sun shine and the rain fall when he felt it was needed, and the crops looked wonderful. Already he boasted that he had been right in thinking he could do it better – until the harvest was brought in. Then, it turned out that the kernels hadn’t filled, and the heads were empty: he had forgotten that wind, too, is needed, or the grain will not be pollinated. 

We cannot make the weather, but what we can do is hope that it all turns out well – and now enjoy the beauty that comes with spring and early summer.

A full load

Much has happened in the last two weeks, and the pace has definitely picked up: we are in the midst of spring fieldwork and seeding. 

After preparing machinery, walking around the perimeter of the fields to remove any trees that had fallen during the winter, after loading the big truck with seed wheat, and the old red tandem with fertilizer, we were ready to go a week ago today.

Thanks to the abundant snowfall in April there is again a lot of standing water in dips and depressions through which we can drive in a drier year. This is a nuisance, since it means driving around those water holes, which takes a lot more time than driving straight up and down the field, of course. On the other hand, it offers opportunities to watch several different kinds of ducks, or catch a glimpse of a killdeer couple before they again blend into their surroundings, camouflaged perfectly. Also, even from a noisy tractor cab the serenity of a still pool of water reflecting blue sky and clouds draws me in and brings me joy.

Northern Shovelers 

Serenity was not the mood that had captured me this morning: it was something like pure, unadulterated joy, quite literally out of the blue.

I couldn’t help smiling on my way to town when I thought about the circumstances of this particular trip. In the last few days we have been working on Magnus and Courtney’s farm, about 40 km northwest of here. When I drive there, usually around noon, to give Johann a break from driving tractor for a few hours, I often have to bring things from home. Sometimes, when I have the pickup, I take diesel in the Tidy Tank; sometimes there are tools and other odds and ends.

Today, I had a list of errands that would have made the pickup the preferable mode of transportation, but all I had here was the Corolla.

Magnus had asked me to bring all the leftover bags and half bags of canola from last year so that he could use them up. Since I also had to pick up a newly repaired cultivator tire from the tire shop, however, the trunk space was used up, which meant I had to stack the canola bags on the rear seat. It just fit. The front seat was taken by my own bag with lunch and tea, camera and notebook, glasses and whatever else one might need for a shift on the tractor, plus Johann’s lunch – still room enough for the hay fork, a small torch, and a few odds and ends, but it was getting pretty crowded by now. 

I was almost out of the door when I got another phone call from Magnus, ‘could you please pick something up from Hammer Equipment (a machinery dealership in town)?’ Oh, sure – what’s one more errand, after all? I was just hoping that it wasn’t something bulky, since it would soon start to infringe on my own space in the car.

Thus I left home, my poor little car even closer to the ground than usual with its 150 kg of extra weight in the back. Gravel roads are treacherous at the moment: they have been dry for quite a while but still seem to be soft, and every once in awhile something akin to a dinosaur spine or a mountain ridge has pushed up in the centre, or a little volcano-like mound seems to have erupted from the depths underneath the road. Woe to the vehicle whose driver hasn’t kept her eyes open: to hit one of these bulges could easily shave off the oil pan or do other serious damage. By now I know the dangerous areas on the five kilometer stretch between home and the highway, and we were fine, my Corolla and I.

Meanwhile I listened to CBC Stereo’s “This is my music” on the radio, a program where Canadian musicians talk about the music that has influenced them, played a role in their lives. Today it was Angela Cheng, one of Canada’s foremost pianists, whom I had heard only a week ago at a concert with the Edmonton symphony orchestra in the same concert they were to play at New York's Carnegie Hall on Tuesday of this week. Then, she had played in a triple concerto by Canadian composer John Estacio, together with violinist Juliette Kang, and cellist Denise Djokic, the artist at work with passion and great competence. Today, she let us have a glimpse of Angela Cheng, the woman, talked about her childhood in Hong Kong and her daughters, and among the many beautiful pieces of music she had chosen for this program –mostly classical, of course - there was a song by Michael Bublé. 

And this is what made me smile: the image of me driving to town in a car filled to the brim, enjoying the chance to learn more about a woman I admire, listening to Michael’s beautiful smooth voice, sun dancing on the surface of a pond by the side of the road, the swallows, returned from their winter quarters about five days ago, showing off their skills with easy grace, the greening of the landscape – how could I not smile on a morning like this!